Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Native without a Nation’s students had a meeting on February 19th 2010. We talked about their problems in schools here where most of the Iraqi students are doing well. They are more intelligent than others. Two of the Iraqi refugee students are going to take part in an intelligence contest. It’s a contest among the schools in the city of Damascus. The big problem is that these students don’t sense stability here, which if anything will change their lives ever after. This thought has been controlling their lives.

The other problem is that they need computers to get information to help them choose what they like to study. For example Noor and Muna want to study art and design. Anfal wants to study sculpturing and Zinab wants to be a singer. They do well with their work but all of that doesn’t exist in the curriculum of their school.

The other part of the meeting was about Noor, Muna and Anfal's participation in the art show. They wanted to say this to their supporters:

Since the first art show we had in Damascus, we felt admiration and encouragement from the audience to continue painting, and talk about the mixtures of colors. We were often asked if we ever went to art schools. The answer always is “ We never studied art, it’s just what we do and like to do. We do express what we feel and we convert it on our paintings.

We benefit from advises and criticism of the visitors, which is helpful to make us continue with our notions in our work.

At the end of the meeting we agreed that we have to be strong and keep getting better. The last art show was in January 19, 2010 at the Russian cultural center in Damascus where most of the visitors were artists, writers, activists, critics, journalists as well as friends.

We noticed the difference between the first and last art show, our paintings became stronger and more expressive through the subjects and the colors. Every painting had story. Now we are preparing for another art show, with new paintings, new stories, and new style.